France in the Nineteenth Century Part 5

She was a good mother to her children, and had plenty of ability.

Of course she hated the French Revolution, and everything that savored of what are called liberal opinions. Her career, which was full of vicissitudes and desperate plots, ended by her being dismissed ignominiously from Naples by the English amba.s.sador, and she went to end her days with her nephew at Vienna.

Marie Amelie used sometimes to tell her children how she had wept when a child for the death of the little dauphin, the eldest son of Louis XVI., who, before the Revolution broke out, was taken away from the evil to come. She was to have been married to him had he lived. When older, she had an early love-affair with her cousin, Prince Antoine of Austria; but he was destined for the Church, and the youthful courtship came to an untimely end. When she first met her future husband, she and her family were living in a sort of provisional exile in Palermo. The princess was twenty-seven, Louis Philippe was ten or twelve years older, and they seem to have been quite determined to marry each other very soon after their acquaintance began. It was not easy to do so, however, for the duke, as we have seen, was at that period too much a republican to suit even an English Admiral; but the princess declared that she would go into a convent if the marriage was forbidden, and on Dec. 25, 1809, she became the wife of Louis Philippe.

No description could do justice to the purity and charity of this admirable woman; and in her good works she was seconded by her sister-in-law, Madame Adelade, and by her daughter.

"The queen," her almoner tells us, "had 500,000 francs a year for her personal expenses, and gave away 400,000 of them." "M. Appert,"

she would say to him, "give those 500 francs we spoke of, but put them down upon next month's account. The waters run low this month; my purse is empty." An American lady, visiting the establishment of a great dressmaker in Paris, observed an old black silk dress hanging over a chair. She remarked with some surprise: "I did not know you would turn and fix up old dresses." "I do so only for the queen," was the answer.

The imposture, ingrat.i.tude, and even insolence of some of Marie Amelie's pet.i.tioners failed to discourage her benevolence. For instance, an old Bonapartist lady, according to M. Appert, one day wrote to her:--

MADAME,--If the Bourbons had not returned to France, for the misfortune of the country, my beloved mistress and protectress, the Empress Marie Louise, would still be on the throne, and I should not be under the humiliating necessity of telling you that I am without bread, and that the wretched bed on which I sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit, because I cannot pay a year's rent. I dare not ask you for a.s.sistance, for my heart is with my real sovereign, and I cannot promise you my grat.i.tude. If, however, you think fit to preserve a life which, since the misfortunes of my country, has been full of bitterness, I will accept a loan. I should blush to receive a gift.

I am, Madame, your servant, C.

When this impertinent letter was handed to the almoner, the queen had written on it: "She must be very unhappy, for she is very unjust.

A hundred francs to be sent to her immediately, and I beg M. Appert to make inquiries concerning this lady's circ.u.mstances."

In vain the almoner remonstrated. The only effect of his remonstrance was that the queen authorized him to make her gift 300 francs if he found it necessary. When he knocked at the door of the garret of the pet.i.tioner, she opened it with agitation. "Oh, Monsieur!"

she said, "are you the Commissioner of Police come to arrest me for my outrageous letter to the queen? I am so unhappy that at times I became deranged. I am sorry to have written as I did to a princess who to all the poor is good and charitable." For answer, M. Appert showed her her own letter, with the queen's memorandum written upon it. "There was no lack of heartfelt grat.i.tude then,"

he says, "and no lack of poverty to need the triple benefaction."

CHAPTER III.

LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER.--STRASBURG, BOULOGNE, HAM.

There is a theory held by some observers that the man who fails in his duty to a woman who has claims upon his love and his protection, never afterwards prospers; and perhaps the most striking ill.u.s.tration of this theory may be found in the career of the Emperor Napoleon.

Nothing went well with him after his divorce from Josephine. His only son died. The children of his brothers, with the exception of Louis Napoleon, and the Prince de Canino, the son of Lucien, were all ordinary men, inclined to the fast life of their period; while the descendants of Josephine, honored and respected, are now connected with many European thrones.

The son of Napoleon, called by his grandfather, the Austrian emperor, the Duc de Reichstadt, but by his own Bonaparte family Napoleon II., died at Vienna, July 22, 1832. The person from whom, during his short, sad life, he had received most kindness, and to whom, during his illness, he was indebted for almost maternal care, was the young wife of his cousin Francis, the Princess Sophia of Bavaria, who in the same week that he died, became the mother of Maximilian, the unfortunate Emperor of Mexico, who, exactly thirty-five years after, on July 22, 1867, was shot at Queretaro.

The Emperor Napoleon had made a decree that if male heirs failed him, his dynasty should be continued by the sons of his brother Joseph. Lucien, the republican, was pa.s.sed over, as well as his descendants; and Joseph failing of male heirs, the throne of France was to devolve on Louis, king of Holland, and his heirs. Joseph left only daughters, Zenaide and Charlotte. Louis Bonaparte when he died, left but one son.

Louis Bonaparte was nine years younger than his brother Napoleon, who by no right of primogeniture, but by right of success, was early looked upon as the head of the family of Bonaparte. He a.s.sumed the place of father to his little brother Louis, and a very unsatisfactory father he proved. Louis was studious, poetical, solid, honorable, and unambitious. His brother was resolved to make him a distinguished general and an able king. He succeeded in making him a brave soldier and a very good general; but Louis had no enthusiasm for the profession of arms. He hated bloodshed, and above all he hated sack and pillage. He had no genius, and crooked ways of any kind were abhorrent to him. When a very young man he fell pa.s.sionately in love with a lady, whom he called his Sophie. But his brother and the world thought the real name of the object of his affection was Emilie de Beauharnais, the Empress Josephine's niece by marriage. This lady became afterwards the wife of M. de La Vallette, Napoleon's postmaster-general, who after the return of the Bourbons in 1815, was condemned to death with Ney and Labedoyere. His wife saved him by changing clothes with him in prison; but the fearful strain her nerves suffered until she was sure of his escape, unsettled her reason. She was not sent to an asylum, but lived to a great age in an _appartement_ in Paris, carefully tended and watched over by her friends.[1]

[Footnote 1: Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III.]

But whether it was with a Sophie or an Emilie, Louis Bonaparte fell in love, and Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Josephine, gay, lively, poetical, and enthusiastic, had given her heart to General Duroc, the Emperor Napoleon's aide-de-camp; therefore both the young people resisted the darling project of Napoleon and Josephine to marry them to each other. By such a marriage Josephine hoped to avert the divorce that she saw to be impending. She fancied that if sons were born to the young couple, Napoleon would be content to leave his throne to the heir of his brother Louis, whom he had adopted, and of his step-daughter, of whom he was very fond. But Louis would not marry Hortense, and Hortense would not have Louis.

At last, however, in the excitement of a ball, a reluctant consent was wrung from Louis; then Hortense was coerced into being a good French girl, and giving up Duroc. She and Louis were married. A more unhappy marriage never took place. Husband and wife were separated by an insurmountable (or at least unsurmounted) incompatibility of temperament. Louis was a man whose first thought was duty. Hortense loved only gayety and pleasure. He particularly objected to her dancing; she was one of the most graceful dancers ever seen, and would not give it up to please him. In short, she was all graceful, captivating frivolity; he, rigid and exacting. Both had burning memories in their hearts of what "might have been," and above all, after Louis became king of Holland, each took opposite political views. Louis wanted to govern Holland as the good king of the Dutch; Napoleon expected him to govern it in the interests of his dynasty, and as a Frenchman. The brothers disagreed most bitterly. Napoleon wrote indignant, unjust letters to Louis. Hortense took Napoleon's side in the quarrel, and led a French party at the Dutch court.

Intense was the grief of Louis and Hortense, Napoleon and Josephine, when the eldest son of this marriage, the child on whom their hopes were set, died of the croup at an early age. Hortense was wholly prostrated by her loss. She had still one son, and was soon to have another. The expected child was Charles Louis Napoleon, who was to become afterwards Napoleon III.

Soon after Louis Napoleon's birth, King Louis abdicated the throne of Holland. He said he could not do justice to the interests and wishes of his people, and satisfy his brother at the same time.

He retired to Florence, where he lived for many years, only once more coming back to public life, viz., in 1814, to offer his help to his brother Napoleon, when others were deserting him.

Napoleon was very fond of Hortense's little boys, though in 1811 he had completed his divorce, had married the Austrian archd.u.c.h.ess, and had a son of his own.

Louis Napoleon has left us some fragmentary reminiscences of his childhood, which have a curious interest.

"My earliest recollections," he says, "go back to my baptism, and I hasten to remark that I was three years old when I was baptized, in 1810, in the chapel at Fontainebleau. The emperor was my G.o.dfather, and the Empress Marie Louise was my G.o.dmother. Then my memory carries me back to Malmaison. I can still see my grandmother, the Empress Josephine, in her _salon_, on the ground floor, covering me with her caresses, and, even then, flattering my vanity by the care with which she retailed my _bons mots_; for my grandmother spoiled me in every particular, whereas my mother, from my tenderest years, tried to correct my faults and to develop my good qualities. I remember that once arrived at Malmaison, my brother and I were masters to do as we pleased. The empress, who pa.s.sionately loved flowers and conservatories, allowed us to cut her sugar-canes, that we might suck them, and she always told us to ask for anything we might want.

"One day, when she wished to know as usual, what we would like best, my brother, who was three years older than I, and consequently more full of sentiment, asked for a watch, with a portrait of our mother; but I, when the empress said: 'Louis, ask for whatever will give you the greatest pleasure,' begged to be allowed to go out and paddle in the gutter with the little boys in the street.

Indeed, until I was seven years old it was a great grief to me to have to ride always in a carriage with four or six horses. When, in 1815, just before the arrival of the allied army in Paris, we were hurried by our tutor to a hiding-place, and pa.s.sed on foot along the Boulevards, I felt the keenest sensations of happiness within my recollection. Like all children, though perhaps even more than most children, soldiers fixed my attention. Whenever at Malmaison I could escape from the _salon_, I was off to the great gates, where there were always grenadiers of the Garde Imperiale.

One day, from a ground-floor window I entered into conversation with one of these old _grognards_ who was on duty. He answered me laughing. I called out: 'I know my drill. I have a little musket!'

Then the grenadier asked me to put him through his drill, and thus we were found, I shouting, 'Present arms! Carry arms! Attention!'

the old grenadier obeying, to please me. Imagine my happiness! I often went with my brother to breakfast with the emperor. When he entered the room, he would come up to us, take our heads in his hands, and so lift us on the table. This frightened my mother very much, Dr. Corvisart having told her that such treatment was very bad for children."

The day before the Emperor Napoleon left Paris for the campaign of Waterloo, Hortense carried her boys to the Tuileries to take leave of him. Little Louis Napoleon contrived to run alone to his uncle's cabinet, where he was closeted with Marshal Soult. As soon as the boy saw the emotion in the emperor's face, he ran up to him, and burying his head in his lap, sobbed out: "Our governess says you are going to the wars,--don't go; don't go, Uncle." "And why not, Louis? I shall soon come back." "Oh, Uncle, those wicked allies will kill you! Let me go with you." The emperor took the boy upon his knee and kissed him. Then, turning to Soult, who was moved by the little scene, he said, "Here, Marshal, kiss him; he will have a tender heart and a lofty spirit; he is perhaps the hope of my race."

After Waterloo, the emperor, who pa.s.sed one night in Paris, kissed the children at the last moment, with his foot upon the step of the carriage that was to carry him the first stage of his journey to St. Helena.

After this, Hortense and her boys were not allowed to live in France.

Protected by an aide-de-camp of Prince Schwartzenberg, they reached Lake Constance, on the farthest limits of Switzerland. There, after a while, Queen Hortense converted a gloomy old country seat into a refined and beautiful home. A great trial, however, awaited her.

King Louis demanded the custody of their eldest son, and little Napoleon was taken from his mother, leaving her only Louis. Louis had always been a "mother's boy," frail in health, thoughtful, grave, loving, and full of sentiment.

Hortense's life at Arenenberg was varied in the winter by visits to Rome. Her husband lived in Florence, and they corresponded about their boys. But though they met once again in after years, they were husband and wife no more. Indeed, charming as Hortense was to all the circle that surrounded her, tender as a mother, and devoted as a friend, her conduct as a wife was not free from reproach. She was a coquette by nature, and it is undeniable that more than one man claimed to have been her lover.

After a while her son Louis went for four years to college at Heidelberg. Mother and son never forget the possibilities that might lie before them. When the Italian revolution broke out, in 1832, Hortense went to Rome, both her sons being at that time in Florence with their father. Although the elder was newly married to his cousin, the daughter of King Joseph, both he and Louis were full of restlessness, and caught the revolutionary fervor. They contrived to escape from their father's house and to join the insurgents, to the great displeasure of both father and mother; but they were fired by enthusiasm for Italian liberty, and took the oaths as Carbonari.

King Louis and Queen Hortense were exceedingly distressed; both foresaw the hopelessness of the Italian rising. Queen Hortense went at once to Florence to consult her husband, and it was arranged that she should go in pursuit of her sons, inducing them, if possible, to give up all connection with so hopeless a cause. But before she reached them, the insurgents, who seem to have had no fixed plan and no competent leader, had come to the conclusion that Bonapartes were not wanted in a struggle for republicanism; they therefore requested the young men to withdraw, and their mother went after them to Ancona. On her way she was met by her son Louis, who was coming to tell her that his brother was dead. There has always been mystery concerning the death of this young Napoleon. The accredited account is that he sickened with the measles, and died at a roadside inn on his way to Ancona. The unhappy mother went into that little town upon the Adriatic with her youngest son; but she soon found that the Austrians, having come to the help of the Pope, were at its gates. Louis, too, had sickened with the measles. She hid him in an inner chamber, and spread a report that he had escaped to Corfu. She had with her an English pa.s.sport for an English lady, travelling to England with her two sons. She was obliged to subst.i.tute a young Italian, who was compromised, for her dead son; and as soon as Louis could rise from his bed, they set out, meeting With many adventures until they got beyond the boundaries of Italy.

Under cover of their English pa.s.sport they crossed France, and visited the Chateau of Fontainebleau, where the mother pointed out to her son the scenes of his childhood.

The death of the Duc de Reichstadt in July, 1832, caused Louis Napoleon to consider himself the head of the Napoleonic family.

According to M. Claude, the French Minister of Police, he came on this occasion into Paris, and remained there long enough to dabble in conspiracy.

After spending a few months in England, mother and son went back to Arenenberg, where they kept up a close correspondence with all malcontents in France. The Legitimists preferred them the house of Orleans, and the republicans of that period--judging from their writings as well as their acts--evidently believed that Louis Napoleon, now head of the house of Bonaparte, represented republican principles based on universal suffrage, as well as the glories of France.

One fine morning in October, 1836, Louis took leave of his mother at Arenenberg, telling her that he was going to visit his cousins at Baden. Stephanie de Beauharnais in the days of the Empire had been married to the Grand Duke of that little country. Queen Hortense knew her son's real destination, no doubt, for she took leave of him with great emotion, and hung around his neck a relic which Napoleon had taken from the corpse of the Emperor Charlemagne when his tomb was opened at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was a tiny fragment of wood, said to be from the True Cross, set beneath a brilliant emerald. It seems possible that this may have been the little ornament found on the neck of the Prince Imperial after his corpse was stripped by savages in Zululand.

With this talisman against evil, and with the wedding-ring with which Napoleon had married Josephine, upon his finger, Prince Louis Napoleon set out upon an expedition so rash that we can hardly bring ourselves to a.s.sociate it with the character popularly ascribed to the Third Emperor Napoleon.

His plan was to overturn the government of Louis Philippe, and then appeal to the people by a _plebiscite_,--_i. e._, a question to be answered yes or no by universal suffrage. This same plan he carried out successfully several times during his reign.

He went from Arenenberg to Baden-Baden,[1] where he made his final arrangements. Strasburg was to be the scene of his first attempt, and at Baden-Baden he had an interview with Colonel Vambery, who commanded the Fourth Regiment of Artillery, part of the Strasburg garrison.

[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc, Dix Ans.]

Louis Blanc, the republican and socialist historian, writing in 1843, speaks thus of Louis Napoleon:--

"Brought up in exile, unfamiliar with France, Louis Bonaparte had a.s.sumed that the _bourgeoisie_ remembered only that the Empire had curbed the Revolution, established social order, and given France the Code Napoleon. He fancied that the working-cla.s.ses would follow the eagle with enthusiasm the moment it appeared, borne, as of old, at the head of regiments, and heralded by the sound of trumpets. A twofold error! The things the _bourgeoisie_ in 1836 remembered most distinctly about Napoleon were his despotism and his taste for war; and the most lasting impression of him amongst the most intelligent in the working-cla.s.ses was that whilst sowing the seeds of democratic aspiration throughout Europe, he had carefully weeded out all democratic tendencies in his own dominions."

But though Louis Blanc is right in saying that the evil that Napoleon did, lived after him in the memories of thinking men, it is also true that those born since the fall of the Second Empire can have no idea of the general enthusiasm that still lingered in France in Louis Philippe's reign, round memories of the glories of Napoleon.

Men might not wish him back again, but they worshipped him as the national demiG.o.d. After Sedan he was pulled down literally and metaphorically from his pedestal; and the old feelings about him which half a century ago even foreign nations seemed to share, now seem obsolete and extravagant to readers of Lanfrey and the books of Erckmann-Chatrian.

Even in 1836, when Louis Napoleon in secret entered Strasburg, he was surprised and disappointed to find that those on whom he had counted to a.s.sist him in making the important "first step" in his career, were very doubtful of its prudence. He had counted on the co-operation of General Voirol, an old soldier of the Empire who was in command of the Department in which Strasburg was situated; but when he wrote him a letter, in the most moving terms appealing to his affection for the emperor, the old general not only declined to join the plot, but warned the Prefect of Strasburg that mischief was on foot, though he did not mention in what quarter. The Government in Paris seems, however, to have concluded that it would be best to let a plot so very rash come to a head. There was a public singer, calling herself Madame Gordon, at Baden, who flung herself eagerly into the conspiracy. Louis Napoleon on quitting Arenenberg had expected to meet several generals of distinction, who had served under his uncle, at a certain trysting-place between Arenenberg and Strasburg. He waited for them three days, but they never came.

He then resolved to continue his campaign without their aid or encouragement, and entered Strasburg secretly on the night of Oct.